Can Diet Help Treat – & Even Prevent – Autism?

Dr. Shauna Young is a believer in the words of German philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer who related the three steps of truth:

“First, it is ridiculed;

“Second, it is vigorously opposed;

“Third, it is accepted as being self-evident.”

Dr. Young has been living through the first two stages of that evolution with regard to her views on how diet can affect Autism Spectrum Disorders, but feels the third stage is just around the corner.

“When it comes to our research, we’re a bit like the square peg in the round hole,” said Dr. Young, Chief Medical Advisor for the NoHarm Foundation www.noharmfoundation.org). “It’s not that other doctors aren’t gaining interest in what we’re doing with regard to diet and autism, and it isn’t that the results aren’t remarkable. It’s more that the medical community just isn’t accustomed to something this new, and the established protocols for publishing findings just don’t fit when dealing with something truly unique like this. Traditionally, findings like ours would be an offshoot of previous research, and publishing an article about it would include lots of references to other articles, which is the standard. But what we’re doing has both the virtue and the vice of not having ever been tried before, and there is just no mechanism in the bureaucracy set up for what we’ve discovered.

“At face value, we’re using our Spectrum Balance Protocol Diet to control disorders that have baffled researchers for decades. How do you present results like that to an established medical community without a chorus of disbelief, especially when our research isn’t based on anything that’s come before? So, in spite of the resistance from the medical community, I’m taking the track record we’ve accomplished over the past five years out directly to the families of autistic children because they deserve to have this information now – independent of the ‘process’ that the system expects”.

Dr. Young’s approach to helping autistic individuals primarily using just food, does not involve expensive drugs or large amounts of supplements, and it does not promote specific products or treatment services. Instead, it simply suggests a highly specific diet that is designed to reduce the unwanted symptoms of autism.

She acknowledged that there is much disagreement and conflicting information in nutritional/toxicology research fields as to what actual levels of ingestion and retention of manganese is even considered “safe” above very trace amounts. However, she said her team has found numerous studies that have pointed to negative consequences suspected from manganese levels.

“As these protocols involve no drugs or medications of any kind, they do ‘no harm’ whatsoever,” Dr. Young says. “There is nothing to lose and no medical risk involved with this regimen. And for the families all around the world who have seen the differences in their children from applying these methods, we know that the very least these protocols offer is new hope.”

2 thoughts on “Can Diet Help Treat – & Even Prevent – Autism?”

There has been a lot of interesting research around diets, some of it useful and some of it fraudulent. It connects to the “Biomedical” model of autism, which suggests that autism is a more systemic condition than just a cognitive disorder, and also suggests that autism may be multiple immune or digestive (or other) disorders being erroneously grouped together – a common outcome for a variety of distinct syndromes, which would explain why the genetics research is making such slow progress.

I was, however, alarmed by Dr. Young’s statements that she is taking her information directly to the families “because they deserve to have this information now – independent of the ‘process’ that the system expects.” That makes me very suspicious. This is exactly the line that con artists use to justify the lack of rigorous evidence for questionable products they are selling. There ARE medical journals that publish this sort of information, and if she is marketing her diet techniques in addition to protesting that she is being unfairly ignored by the research community, I would be VERY skeptical of her claims.

There are a lot of people pushing very dangerous and questionable treatments for autism out there, claiming remarkable results and making the similar statements about the medical community ignoring them. Sometimes children die from these “treatments”, other times families just lose their money.

And not everyone making such claims is a con. There are also many genuine people who have found unusual approaches that seem to work. The difficulty is knowing how to sort the two out.

For the sake of her clients, she needs to document and publish her results in peer-reviewed journals. There is value in letting other researchers try to poke holes in your claims, in being forced to address whether your “cures” were actually normal, spontaneous recoveries or were statistically above such “background noise”, whether your sample population was representative of the autism community, whether you put anyone at risk, and whether you actually measured what you claimed. The average family isn’t going to know how to ask those questions.

There is nothing wrong with the dietary approach, as long as it is based on a reasonably healthy diet to begin with. So maybe she is on to something new and wonderful, but I would encourage people to be careful.

I had not heard about the work Dr. Young was doing with food and autism. I am eager to learn more of her diet plan. I am a firm believer that our children suffer from many things, which are directly related to what they eat or don’t eat. Too many children and adults eat “food” that should never be considered food and foods that are filled with preservatives, dyes, and the wrong kinds of fats and sugars.

You may also be aware of the Feingold Diet, which goes beyond foods and addresses the chemicals we use everyday – laundry detergents, dryer sheets, air freshners, and etc. Our skin is an organ and we can absorb toxins through the skin that can damage healthy cells. – Jan Creed, Heritage Montessori School